Evaluation of depression and the contributing factors in pregnant women referring to urban and rural health care centers of Sarakhs city, Iran

Clinical definition of depression disorder has changed and made precise over the time. Some studies reported depression during pregnancy was more common than postpartum depression. The purpose of this study is to evaluate prevalence and factors that may be contributing to the depression in pregnant women in Sarakhs city. This cross sectional study was conducted on 300 pregnant women who was referred to the health centers in Sarakhs city, Razavi Khorasan province, Iran, 2011. Beck's Depression inventory questionnaire and demographic questionnaire were completed by trained interviewers. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16 by using T-test, man-Whitney, Chi-square tests. P-value less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.Prevalence of depression in pregnant women was 47.5% which the most of them had moderate depression. In this assay, depression significantly was related to mother age [P=0.02], her occupations [P=0.009], family income [P=0.04], ethnicity [P=0.03], place of living [P=0.01], number of children [P=0.001], unwanted pregnancy [P=0.001], and history of parities [P=0.001]. Prevalence of depression during pregnancy makes it more important for providing antenatal care and supporting such women in seeking help. This study indicating the importance of the psychological state of pregnant women, screening depression with accurate assessment of the symptoms and diagnosis it as early as possible